Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture

One year of blogging

Bridges and Tangents is one year old today. 365 days, 190 posts, 1500 tags, goodness knows how many words. You can read the first post here – about ‘wonder’ in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. Amazing how a hesitant step into the unknown future quickly becomes a moment of nostalgia. The exhilarating adventure of ‘being-for-itself’, as Sartre would say, of reaching beyond, easily slips into the familiarity of ‘being-in-itself’ – the world that we know and depend on.

San Francisco, Bay Bridge

I am not seeking comments or accolades here, just letting you know that I intend to keep going, for now. Blogging in this way is simply part of life for me now. I enjoy the excuse to think (if one were needed) and to write; every now and then I’m delighted with a discovery and get huge satisfaction from sharing it; and the rhythm of reflection and writing isn’t too time consuming. The danger is that something once fresh will become staid; I’ll just have to watch out for that, and perhaps circumstances – or some new form of social communication – will take over before then.

Ancient clapper bridge over the East Dart River at Postbridge

The effects are still largely unknown, but it’s good to get feedback and conversation in the comments, and when I bump into people who have come across the blog. Thanks especially to those who have been reading regularly, to those who have recommended the blog to others, and to those who have taken the time to comment.

Tangent by Whatknot

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿To celebrate, as you can see, I’ve hunted out some beautiful images of bridges and tangents.

12 Responses

Happy birthday Bridges and Tangents.
Congratulations Fr Stephen, I Love your blog.
I read only 3 blogs daily and I Love each of them for similar and different reasons. I have been following your blog for six months now, but only brave enough to comment for 3ish. Its amazing how quickly you become fond of other peoples quirks and comments, everybody is so inspiring. Maybe you should have a B & T gathering!

Thank you so much for all the ecliptic thoughts, ideas. stimuli, and teachings, but mostly for the opportunity to allow people to be courageous in their responses. Bless You.

What a feat to have kept a year of insights blogging for a year! I don’t manage to catch all of them, but those I do never fail to interest. I’ve just taken a peak today after a long summer break. It’s a brilliant idea, broadening the imagination of anyone who reads them. I rarely read a paper these days, so your blog keeps me in touch with current interests and I love the mix of literary, artistic, cinematic etc comment. Thanks for all the effort.

Yes indeed, Happy Birthday to Bridges and Tangents and many, many thanks to you Father Stephen for starting the blog and deciding to continue with it. Through reading the blog, my intelectual and cultural horizons have been broadened quite a lot to say the least. Forgive my repetition of an earlier post, but my circumstances prevent me getting to a great many of the events you discuss, therefore you have made me aware of them and, in some cases, this awareness has prodded me to explore them further. Other posts have helped me to think more deeply and clearly about what our Church teaches and I feel better for this. I look forward every day or two to reading each new post and to sharing views with you and the other readers
So, many, many thsnks and I look forward to reading more of the same.
By the way, yours is the only blog I actually subscribe to, although I do dip into one other which doesn’t appear so frequently.

Father Stephen:
Your blog is the only one I have ever read and/or followed, and I look forward to reading what you have to say. It is so nice to have an intelligent and thoughtful piece to read, and I do hope that you continue.
I have had no problems with speed on the page, or any problems with links.
Thank you again.

About this blog

Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture - at the arts, science, religion, politics, philosophy; sorting through the jumble; seeing what stands out, what unsettles, what intrigues, what connects, what sheds light. Father Stephen Wang is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Westminster, London. He is currently Senior University Chaplain, based at Newman House Catholic Chaplaincy. [Banner photo with kind permission of Matthew Powell]

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Images Policy

As far as I know none of the image use in this blog is against copyright law. Images copied here are either (i) my own or (ii) out of copyright or (iii) used under a Creative Commons License [CCL], which means (roughly, usually) that the photographer (or copyright owner) has agreed the unedited image can be used non-commercially with proper attribution. If I mark an image as CCL it means that I have used the image under a CCL; it does not mean that I am now licensing this image with a CCL.